Monday, May 06, 2013

The good ole double standard

More hateful British bureaucracy

Some stories make my blood boil. You won’t always find them on the front pages or leading the television news bulletins. But they tell you more about the condition of modern Britain than most of what passes for ‘news’ these days.

Take the case of 19-year-old Kurtis Green, from Dersingham in Norfolk. For the past 12 years he has been lovingly tending the war memorial opposite his parents’ fish and chip shop.

It began when he was just seven. Kurtis saved up his pocket money to buy gardening tools and started clearing litter and planting bulbs.

Over the years he has devoted hundreds of hours of unpaid time to his task. When he was 15, he mounted a successful campaign to persuade councillors to spend £20,000 restoring the memorial with new flowerbeds, railings, seating and block paving.

Kurtis won a Norfolk Young People’s Role Model of the Year award and was congratulated by the Queen.

Thanks to his efforts, the local branch of the British Legion collected a prize for Norfolk’s most improved war memorial.

But Kurtis wasn’t content to rest on his laurels. Deciding the plants and flowers could do with more irrigation, he tapped into a nearby water supply, which had been installed as part of the restoration programme.

Together with a fellow villager, 65-year-old John Houston, he went about the work in a professional manner. At the insistence of the council, he took out public liability insurance and coned off the area where the trench was being dug.

Once the work was complete, the trench was filled in and new grass seed planted. ‘It actually looked better than when we started,’ said Kurtis proudly.

But this is where it all began to unravel. No good deed, as they say, ever goes unpunished.

While Kurtis and John were carrying out the work, along came a councillor and started taking photographs on his mobile phone. ‘The next thing we knew we were reported to the police.’

Dersingham parish council claimed the work had been undertaken without permission and accused them of theft and causing criminal damage.

As a result, Kurtis and John were interrogated for two hours by police. ‘All we have been doing is to help the community and we are being treated as if we are criminals,’ Kurtis complained.

‘The policewoman was trying to trap us. She kept asking us the same questions in different ways.’Sounds about right. No doubt some dopey WPC who fancies herself as Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect.

Kurtis went on: ‘We were accused of causing criminal damage by digging up earth to see if the existing pipe was OK, but we left the area just as we found it.

‘I can’t understand what the theft is supposed to have been. All the soil we dug up was replaced and the only thing we took away was the dirt under our fingernails.’

A spokesman for Norfolk Police said: ‘The circumstances are now being considered by the Crown Prosecution Service. Police are aware of Kurtis’s efforts in cleaning up the memorial and we will work with all concerned to try to reach an acceptable resolution.’

If they are trying to reach an ‘acceptable resolution’, then why the hell has the file been referred to the CPS?

I’m only surprised that the Old Bill didn’t raid Kurtis’s house at 6am and then ransack the place for eight hours, confiscating his computers and carting off dozens of bin liners full of ‘evidence’.

Of course, in the days when Dersingham had a proper police presence, a resident bobby who knew everyone in the village, it would never have come to this.

PC Plod would have told any jumped-up parish councillor who wanted a young man prosecuted for tidying up the war memorial to take a running jump: ‘Push off, Fred, or I’ll nick you for wasting police time.’

These days, Dersingham villagers who want to talk face-to-face with a real live copper are requested to report to a ‘surgery’ in Budgens supermarket on a Friday morning, between 10.30am and 11.30am.

Turn left at the fish counter, second aisle down. Mind how you go. Time was, too, that most parish councillors saw themselves as servants, not masters, of their community.

Today, the majority of those who work in every level of ‘public service’ seem to regard the public, at best, as an inconvenience and, at worst, as the enemy.

OK, admittedly the Jobsworth mentality has always been with us, but the ubiquitous urge on the part of so-called ‘public servants’ to bully and punish their fellow citizens has never been more prevalent.

Dersingham council refused to identify the councillor who made the complaint. Tony Bubb, the council’s Lib Dem chairman, resigned on Monday, but we are told his decision had nothing to do with the dispute over the memorial.

Parish clerk Sarah Bristow said she couldn’t comment because the incident was being investigated by police, but added: ‘The parish council did not give anyone permission to do anything.’

That’s odd, because Kurtis says he took out liability insurance at the council’s insistence.

Even so, why should he need the council’s permission? He’d been tending the memorial for over a decade. His grandfather served in World War II and Kurtis says he started his clean-up campaign because it ‘was not in a fit state’ to honour those who had fought for their country.

‘In those days, it was a complete disgrace. I just decided to do something to help.’

Precisely. In a sane world, the council would have made the upkeep of the memorial one of its priorities, not fobbed off the responsibility to a teenager.

The real disgrace is that so many war memorials remain neglected. As memory of the two world wars fades, respect for those who made the ultimate sacrifice has faded with it.

Last year, a man in Hartlepool was fined for using a war memorial as a public urinal. So the idea that a young volunteer can face prosecution for cleaning up a memorial is beyond monstrous.

David Cameron used to bang on about the Big Society, though we haven’t heard all that much about it lately.

Surely Kurtis Green is a classic example of the Big Society in action, a welcome reminder of the millions of good people out there willing to give something back to the community.

Kurtis takes the idea of genuine public service seriously. In his chosen career he’s a chef in a care home.

As his mum, Sandra, says: ‘All he is trying to do is some good. He is a kind, hard-working boy. He’s got a heart of gold.’

Yet what thanks does he get for it? He’s accused of criminal damage and theft by a vindictive, self-important creep with a mobile phone camera and then treated like a criminal by the police, who try to trap him into a ‘confession’.

“Bullying” has become a hot topic – from federal studies highlighting its dangers, to TV shows and “special” news reports, we constantly are admonished not to bully one another, and to stop bullying in our schools. Yet, there is a growing form of bullying that has escaped the attention of bureaucrats and media do-gooders: government bullying of food truck vendors.

Anyone who works near or drives by a large office or industrial complex, particularly in major cities, has at least seen, if not patronized, these “mobile restaurants.” These eateries-on-wheels offer the same quality of food found at brick-and-mortar establishments without the need to drive to one. For workers looking to make the most of a short lunch break, food trucks are a huge convenience; and the diversity of foodstuffs offered truly is amazing.

Yet, food trucks increasingly are being targeted by government regulatory goons who use a variety of methods -- even those fabricated specifically to target food trucks – in an effort to regulate them out of existence. In cities across America, including New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Rochester, and many others, food trucks are fighting for their right to meet a growing public demand.

One might understand the need for increased government regulation and oversight if the rise of food trucks was in tandem with a rise in food poisoning, or major traffic congestion issues. However, like most government power grabs, food truck bullying appears motivated more by cronyism and anti-competitiveness than public health or safety.

“We were told by a couple people who work in the town of Henrietta, as well as on the board of the Town of Henrietta that they need to protect the big businesses of Henrietta,” says Paul Vroman, owner of Rochester-based food truck business Brick-N-Motor. Vroman recently found himself standing before government officials in the Town of Henrietta, New York, groveling for a permit to continue operating his food truck outside of a business complex. Even though Vroman had secured permission of the property owner, and notwithstanding that he operated at that location without incident for months, Henrietta officials demanded that Vroman plead for a permit to continue operating in the town; a permit not even issued by the city at the time.

What was the city’s excuse to bully Vroman and other food trucks in the area? “The town board has not approved [special use permits] because of their feeling that they’re in direct competition with people who have invested in a store, restaurant location and they didn’t feel that would be fair to them,” Henrietta Supervisor Michael Yudelson told a local news affiliate. The board is scheduled to decide Vroman’s fate, and the future of other street food vendors, this week.

A similar situation currently is underway in the city of Atlanta, where bureaucrats on the city council are waging war against street vendors. Even after a court decision last December, which eliminated a sweetheart deal that set-up a monopoly for the city, while still allowing them to loom over food trucks, Atlanta police are again roaming the streets, shutting down vendors.

The targeting of food trucks is a problem that reaches far beyond merely the rights of street vendor entrepreneurs themselves. The unchecked government aggression aimed at a very specific class of businesses is a troubling example of government cronyism at its worst. City officials, sometimes even using imaginary power, are becoming arbiters of “fairness” when it comes to business -- rather than leaving it to the free market. And, when picking winners and losers in the marketplace falls into the hands of government bureaucrats, consumers always lose.

By using government force to direct business, the positive evolution of the economy comes to a screeching halt. Just imagine if these local food truck bullies had even broader latitude to regulate businesses outside of the city limits. Online retailers like Amazon.com would likely be shut down because of their “unfair” advantage over struggling brick-and-mortar stores.

At the national level, one need look no further than the Obama Administration to see the effect of government cronyism. This administration has failed time and time again in its attempt to manipulate the energy sector, with disastrous consequences for taxpayers. Scores of “green” corporations are given government-backed loans as Obama attempts to use government power to force “green” technology on consumers. Dozens of these corporations have failed, costing taxpayers billions of dollars in losses; but the Administration’s “green” initiative remains undeterred.

Fortunately for street vendors, organizations such as the Institute for Justice are stepping in to defend these vulnerable small business owners from government bullies. IJ has established a national street vending initiative to help keep street food legal. Hopefully other individuals and organizations that believe in free enterprise and freedom will join in defense of these entrepreneurs.

President Obama's new "religious tolerance" consultant to the Pentagon, Mikey Weinstein, wants Christian military service members who openly talk about their faith in uniform to be charged with treason, which is a crime punishable by death according to military law.

By employing his consulting services, and as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama is effectively endorsing Weinstein's recently voiced and written views such as: "Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized [sic] and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation's armed forces."

Weinstein's inflamed word picture helps the rest of us understand what the world looks like to those who live with their eyes wide shut and sort of sounds like that old cereal commercial... except this time Mikey doesn't like it - Christianity, that is, so no one else should. And Mikey's giving the rest of us an object lesson in intolerance by showing us what liberal secularists are about: "It's our way, or we shut you down." In this case, Obama's anti-Christian hit man, Weinstein, proposes that honorable men and women in the military who speak about their faith should be charged with a crime worthy of capital punishment. Smells like bull to me.

In recent months, there has been a push against Christianity in the military. A few notables include a military training instructor labeling Jews, Christians, Catholics and Mormons as extremists alongside al Qaeda. The Army blocked a Southern Baptist website, citing it displayed "hostile content," (the Pentagon has since blamed it on a malware glitch), and an Army email was distributed warning fellow soldiers to beware of Christian ministry "hate groups." Each of these incidents could be reasoned-away individually, but they all have one thing in common: Intolerance has an unmistakable stench.

News has it that Mr. Weinstein endorsed the Southern Poverty Law Center's recent statement listing certain Christian organizations as hate groups. He also whole-heartedly agreed with comments made by radical Army Lt. Col. Jack Rich, who told his subordinates to be on the lookout for dangerous Christian soldiers who should be expelled from the military for their beliefs.

Lauding the Lt. Colonel's statement in a Huffington Post anti-Christian hit piece April 16, Weinstein said, "We should as a nation effusively applaud Lt. Col. Rich," and said America should go further to "vigorously support the continuing efforts to expose pathologically anti-gay, Islamaphobic, and rabidly intolerant agitators for what they are: die-hard enemies of the United States Constitution. Monsters, one and all. To do anything less would be to roll out a red carpet to those who would usher in a blood-drenched, draconian era of persecutions, nationalistic militarism, and superstitious theocracy."

Gee, if I didn't know better, I'd think he was speaking about why we are fighting the war on terror.

Religious intolerance reached the proverbial Foggy Bottom in the same article when Weinstein described Christians as "those evil fundamentalist Christian creatures" who hide behind the "facades" of "family values" and "religious liberty." The same attributes could be also pinned to America's founders, whom I suppose Mr. Intolerance would also deem as subversives.

It is obvious, foamy-mouthed Mikey has a bone to pick with Christians, and he's found an effective way to get what he wants by working for the president and the president's new military "yes man" Secretary Chuck Hagel.

Our fine men and women of the military, who are part of a historically noble institution, deserve so much better but are once again the punching bag at the expense of this intolerant administration.

Unsaid below is that most Melbourne taxi-drivers are Indians and that they have had huge troubles with refugee Africans robbing and attacking them. An Indian would be unlikely to be able to tell one black from another. The Aborigines were in other words victims of the politically correct refugee policy that imported large numbers of Africans, with their usual high propensity for crime, into Australia. If you were an Indian taxi driver in Melbourne, you would run from black faces too

Aboriginal actors in town to rehearse an indigenous version of King Lear were repeatedly refused a fare by taxi drivers in Southbank on Monday night, and racially abused on the St Kilda tram Tuesday morning while making their way back to work.

Four separate cabs booked to pick up the performers from the Malthouse on Monday from 6.30pm refused the fare once they arrived and saw the passengers, according to actor Jada Alberts.

"It was a series of cabs," Ms Alberts told ABC Melbourne radio. "As one would rock up, then they would say they couldn't go that distance and drive away. It happened once they'd arrived, when they met the passengers."

Ms Alberts said that a white theatre worker was successful in hailing a cab to take the performers to their St Kilda hotel but "as she goes to usher the company into the vehicle, the cab driver gets a look at them and says 'can't do it' and drives away."

The fifth cab booked by the Malthouse did agree to take the performers to St Kilda.

This comes six months after musician Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was refused a fare over the colour of his skin outside the Palais Theatre last December.

Although the Malthouse issued the cast with Myki cards so they could travel around Melbourne, several of the cast members were bailed up on the St Kilda tram on Tuesday morning by a fellow passenger who yelled that "you Aboriginal people, you don't exist in this country, you don't even have tickets". The passenger then told the driver to call the police and evict the Aboriginal passengers, a request the driver ignored.

"I know that it's not a usual occurrence, for those things to happen within the space of 24 hours was pretty heart-breaking for all of us to deal with," Ms Alberts said.

Playwright and actor Jada Alberts, left. Photo: Anthony Johnson"We are now looking at accommodation options for all the artists within walking distance of the Malthouse so that they don't ever have to deal with this again," says the Malthouse's media manager Maria O'Dwyer.

"Obviously, this has been an extremely distressing situation and we are very upset that a very vocal minority in the Melbourne community have treated our artists with such disrespect – it's quite devastating that they have been subjected to such repeated racism in 'cosmopolitan' Melbourne."

"Some [drivers] pulled over for me (I am not Aboriginal), but drove away when I tried to usher the Aboriginal actors into the taxi. I tried hailing passing-by taxis with the same result (despite their lights indicating that they were available)," she wrote.

"The assumption that we have made is that the decision not to allow these people entry to your taxis was based in racism. Although, if you can offer any other explanation, I would love to hear it.

"I invite this as I am eager not to believe that I witnessed such a hideous display of racism, and that such disgusting and shameful acts are still taking place towards Aboriginal people in Australia."

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

A face of Leftist hate: Cory Booker, (D-NJ)

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Leftist logic: There are allegedly no distinctions between groups of humans, yet we're still supposed to celebrate diversity.

Identity politics is a form of racism

'White Privilege'. .. Oh yes. .. That was abundant in the Irish potato famines. ... And in the Scottish Highland Clearances. ...And in transportations to Australia. ... And in Workhouses. ... 'White privilege' was absolutely RIFE!

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

One may say that the person who gets in trouble with drugs is just as dumb without them

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

Islamic terrorism isn’t a perversion of Islam. It’s the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism.

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here